Pebbles in the pond

Happy Anniversary World

Today is our 12th wedding anniversary. On the satellite radio Matt Monro sings Tony Newley’s song, On a Wonderful Day like Today, “May I take this occasion to say that the whole human race should go down on its knees, show that we’re grateful for mornings like these…”

Zohreh the cat steps on my bare feet and curls her tail around my calf, affectionate gestures to show how grateful and eager she is to receive her breakfast. Four identical little birds catch my eye with their geometric formation to remind me to hang their feeder.

Last night as an anniversary present to each other we attended Stan Satlin’s and Joel Martin’s musical tribute to Nelson Mandela on what would have been Mandela’s 96th birthday at the Riverside Church in Manhattan. Powerful African drums reverberated in my chest as we entered the great sanctuary. Reverend Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr. recounted a visit to the church in which Dr. Martin Luther King, with great respect, introduced Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from 27 years in jail. Mandela’s peace-inspired writings had created an unstoppable tide for the end of apartheid which caused his release and then Presidency of post-apartheid South Africa. The touching event featuring Stan’s and Joel’s music, the voices of a horde of talented singers and musicians, and many moving personal remembrances, brought tears of joy and triumph for me and many others. The meaning of the event, entitled “Footsteps of Mandela”, is that we are each to hear the inner voice from above the way he did and carry out our own Missions in the same unifying spirit.

I had heard Stan’s song “Keeper of the Song” before but never expressed the way it was last night, as a sacred hymn, by a chorus of amazing singers. I prevailed on Stan and Joel to rush me a copy of last night’s performance of that song. And alas it is not here in time for this post. As soon as it is available I will share it. In the meantime here is another recording of Keeper of the Song.

Keeper of the Song

Thirteen years ago Lalita awoke one morning at the ashram where she serves with a voice within her telling her that today she would meet the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life, and bade her to go to New Paltz for that meeting. Driving through a mounting snowstorm she arrived at the location specified by the voice and met me.

At the time I had no idea she had dedicated her life to a spiritual Mission and that her ashram is located at the former site of the hotel where I spent every summer of the first 16 years of my life. As we parted from an initial meeting, I had snapshot flashes of the two futures that emanated from the moment, one in which we would be together. To me it was just a moment but apparently to Lalita it was longer and she later reported that it appeared I had lapsed into a narcoleptic trance.

In Mind Magic I wrote “When two individuals fall in love it is as if two fragments of the universal consciousness have remembered that they are one.”

To the extent of their love,
they will cease to seek individual goals,
and will begin to seek mutual goals.
Two consciousnesses seeking mutual goals

are in the process of gradually
becoming aware of themself
as one consciousness.

Once the goals are merged,
the perceptions and memories
are in a position to follow.

Know that the purpose of love
is to reunite the universal consciousness.

Our wedding ceremony was presided over by the late Rabbi Chaim Gelberman and combined Jewish and Vedic elements, leading me to classify it to friends as an Oy Vedic ceremony. The Rabbi reminded us that the Temple in Jerusalem was built not just for Jews but for all religions since Abraham’s Covenant was with the One God of all.

I’m now reading Harvey Kraft’s brilliant book The Buddha from Babylon in which he reveals a little-known connection between Judaism and the spiritual teachings of India. Abraham was a shaman and religious leader of the Yadu (“root for Yahudi, i.e. Jewish”), one of the five Indo-Aryan tribes mentioned in the Rig Veda, before migrating west following the Epic Drought. His name may be the source of the words Brahma (the Creator God) and Brahmin (man of God).

Abraham is estimated to have been in Babylonia after the Drought around 1800 BCE and the Rig Veda dates back no earlier than 1750 BCE according to Wikipedia and other Internet sources so on the face of it Harvey Kraft could be right.